5 ms·

Life is largely zero-sum.

diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
This is a weird thought. Nearly none of my wife is zero sum. Who loses out if I buy you a beer? Or if my wife and I love each other? Or if people are nice to others? Like seriously - if I treat someone else with respect and dignity am I required to shit on someone else? Of course not.
- atwood22 4y ago
  Zero sum doesn’t mean there is a loser to every transaction. It just means that the net total change is zero. You buy a friend a beer, and you get a beers worth of camaraderie.
  - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
    What remains constant when I give my son a hug? Or I say, “thank you?” The zero-sum game is life stuff is nonsense.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - echelon 4y ago
      When you eat food, something had to die for that. It was a transfer of biochemical energy from that creature to you. Even if it was a vegetarian meal, it got transported to you and dumped CO2 into the atmosphere. The truck probably hit bugs and maybe ran over some small wildlife. If you didn't exist, there would be slightly less demand. If 300 million of you didn't exist, there would be a whole lot less demand. The world would be noticeably different. Everything is energy expenditure and reallocation. Even hugging your son expends ATP that could have been used elsewhere. Hug him a million times and you will be very tired. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't love your son. I'm saying that the world, at the most fundamental level, revolves around the availability of energy and resources. All of these things in the micro add up in the macro. And even if you aren't concerned about it, your government likely is. Every single choice has some quantum of opportunity cost and will play out in butterfly effect fashion.
      - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
        I think this is a stretch here, you’re saying “entropy is real, thus the universe is zero sum.” Hell, we don’t even know if the energy budget for the universe is a constant - we just haven’t observed the opposite yet.
        echelon 4y ago
        In terms of the energy you want to consume in a form factor you can utilize - food, coal if you want electricity today, plastics in tour phone, Amazon shipping, etc. - it's very much not constant.
kergonath 4y ago
It is not. When I go shopping I give them a bill and I get something to eat. Both parties are better off after that transaction. Similarly, if I am good at making stuff but terrible at growing stuff, by being in a community I can survive despite an utter lack of agricultural abilities and produce stuff that the farmers would not know how to make. Again, not zero sum. You could argue that this is civilisation and unnatural. But nature is full of symbionts, not only predator/prey dynamics. “Life is a zero-sum game” sounds like something a social Darwinist would say to justify their pre-existing beliefs. It is in some instances, but it also isn’t in quite a lot of cases. It comes from a very incomplete understanding of life and ecosystems in general.
- atwood22 4y ago
  I’m not sure you know what 0 sum is. Zero sum doesn’t mean you can’t exchange money for goods and services. > When I go shopping I give them a bill and I get something to eat. Both parties are better off after that transaction. Yes, you go shopping and exchange N dollars for N dollars worth of goods. The net change is 0. That’s why it’s zero sum. Of course, life isn’t truly 0 sum. Otherwise we’d have no total economic growth, which is clearly false. However, how those economic gains are distributed probably is 0 sum.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    > I’m not sure you know what 0 sum is. “Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game > Zero sum doesn’t mean you can’t exchange money for goods and services. Zero-sum means that when I win, the other party loses. It means that there cannot be a voluntary exchange, because to agree about an exchange both parties need to see an upside. > Yes, you go shopping and exchange N dollars for N dollars worth of goods. The net change is 0. That is not what it means, though. In any case, I am better off after the exchange because now I have something to eat. The merchant is better off as well because now they can buy an iPhone or something. We are both better off at the end, and nobody has to lose. A zero-sum game in this instance might be the farmer who was pressured to sell €10 cheaper so that the merchant can take these €10 as margin. There was a net transfer from one party to the other with no other upside. But it is far from the only type of situation in life. The initial assertion was “life is a zero-sum game”. Not by a long shot. > However, how those economic gains are distributed probably is 0 sum. Again, that is not what it means. Game theory does not need the concept of currency. Besides, even assuming that it were the case, the fact that the amount of most currencies in existence just keeps increasing is a proof that it does not work like that. Someone, somewhere has to generate that money, therefore there are net emitters.
KptMarchewa 4y ago
It's extremely not. Cooperation generally benefits everyone, and hostility can decrease value for everyone besides few criminals on top.
- atwood22 4y ago
  Benefiting from cooperation doesn’t mean something is or is not zero sum. Take war for example. I can team up with others to form an army and conqueror distant lands. By cooperating, everyone in the army benefits more than they could individually, but the source of those benefits comes from the zero-sum expense of others. The only source (I can think of) of positive sum benefits is innovation. I can, for example, take iron ore, learn how to smelt steel, and use steel to get more iron ore. Smelting iron is still zero-sum, but learning how to smelt iron is what increases the size of the pie.
  - KptMarchewa 4y ago
    Model war as hostility between nations or fractions. The fact that this fraction can be internally consistent does not mean that war represents cooperation.
    - atwood22 4y ago
      I feel like if you need to redefine cooperation then your argument is a bit of a stretch.

This is a weird thought. Nearly none of my wife is zero sum. Who loses out if I buy you a beer? Or if my wife and I love each other? Or if people are nice to others? Like seriously - if I treat someone else with respect and dignity am I required to shit on someone else? Of course not.

atwood22 4y ago
Zero sum doesn’t mean there is a loser to every transaction. It just means that the net total change is zero. You buy a friend a beer, and you get a beers worth of camaraderie.
- diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
  What remains constant when I give my son a hug? Or I say, “thank you?” The zero-sum game is life stuff is nonsense.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - echelon 4y ago
    When you eat food, something had to die for that. It was a transfer of biochemical energy from that creature to you. Even if it was a vegetarian meal, it got transported to you and dumped CO2 into the atmosphere. The truck probably hit bugs and maybe ran over some small wildlife. If you didn't exist, there would be slightly less demand. If 300 million of you didn't exist, there would be a whole lot less demand. The world would be noticeably different. Everything is energy expenditure and reallocation. Even hugging your son expends ATP that could have been used elsewhere. Hug him a million times and you will be very tired. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't love your son. I'm saying that the world, at the most fundamental level, revolves around the availability of energy and resources. All of these things in the micro add up in the macro. And even if you aren't concerned about it, your government likely is. Every single choice has some quantum of opportunity cost and will play out in butterfly effect fashion.
    - diogenes_of_ak 4y ago
      I think this is a stretch here, you’re saying “entropy is real, thus the universe is zero sum.” Hell, we don’t even know if the energy budget for the universe is a constant - we just haven’t observed the opposite yet.
      - echelon 4y ago
        In terms of the energy you want to consume in a form factor you can utilize - food, coal if you want electricity today, plastics in tour phone, Amazon shipping, etc. - it's very much not constant.

kergonath 4y ago

It is not. When I go shopping I give them a bill and I get something to eat. Both parties are better off after that transaction. Similarly, if I am good at making stuff but terrible at growing stuff, by being in a community I can survive despite an utter lack of agricultural abilities and produce stuff that the farmers would not know how to make. Again, not zero sum. You could argue that this is civilisation and unnatural. But nature is full of symbionts, not only predator/prey dynamics. “Life is a zero-sum game” sounds like something a social Darwinist would say to justify their pre-existing beliefs. It is in some instances, but it also isn’t in quite a lot of cases. It comes from a very incomplete understanding of life and ecosystems in general.

atwood22 4y ago
I’m not sure you know what 0 sum is. Zero sum doesn’t mean you can’t exchange money for goods and services. > When I go shopping I give them a bill and I get something to eat. Both parties are better off after that transaction. Yes, you go shopping and exchange N dollars for N dollars worth of goods. The net change is 0. That’s why it’s zero sum. Of course, life isn’t truly 0 sum. Otherwise we’d have no total economic growth, which is clearly false. However, how those economic gains are distributed probably is 0 sum.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > I’m not sure you know what 0 sum is. “Zero-sum game is a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory of a situation which involves two sides, where the result is an advantage for one side and an equivalent loss for the other” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game > Zero sum doesn’t mean you can’t exchange money for goods and services. Zero-sum means that when I win, the other party loses. It means that there cannot be a voluntary exchange, because to agree about an exchange both parties need to see an upside. > Yes, you go shopping and exchange N dollars for N dollars worth of goods. The net change is 0. That is not what it means, though. In any case, I am better off after the exchange because now I have something to eat. The merchant is better off as well because now they can buy an iPhone or something. We are both better off at the end, and nobody has to lose. A zero-sum game in this instance might be the farmer who was pressured to sell €10 cheaper so that the merchant can take these €10 as margin. There was a net transfer from one party to the other with no other upside. But it is far from the only type of situation in life. The initial assertion was “life is a zero-sum game”. Not by a long shot. > However, how those economic gains are distributed probably is 0 sum. Again, that is not what it means. Game theory does not need the concept of currency. Besides, even assuming that it were the case, the fact that the amount of most currencies in existence just keeps increasing is a proof that it does not work like that. Someone, somewhere has to generate that money, therefore there are net emitters.

KptMarchewa 4y ago

It's extremely not. Cooperation generally benefits everyone, and hostility can decrease value for everyone besides few criminals on top.

atwood22 4y ago
Benefiting from cooperation doesn’t mean something is or is not zero sum. Take war for example. I can team up with others to form an army and conqueror distant lands. By cooperating, everyone in the army benefits more than they could individually, but the source of those benefits comes from the zero-sum expense of others. The only source (I can think of) of positive sum benefits is innovation. I can, for example, take iron ore, learn how to smelt steel, and use steel to get more iron ore. Smelting iron is still zero-sum, but learning how to smelt iron is what increases the size of the pie.
- KptMarchewa 4y ago
  Model war as hostility between nations or fractions. The fact that this fraction can be internally consistent does not mean that war represents cooperation.
  - atwood22 4y ago
    I feel like if you need to redefine cooperation then your argument is a bit of a stretch.